Salisbury Democracy Alliance

Tag: WC

  • SDA comes of age

    SDA makes successful presentation to Area Board

    The Alliance was able to report to the Salisbury Area Board on 3 July following the three successful People’s Assemblies we ran in the City. The response was on the whole positive and we did feel that we have made some progress in our quest to improve the manner in which decisions are made in the local political sphere.  We are grateful to Karen Linaker for her help in arranging for our presentation.

    Mark Potts presented the results of the three assemblies noting that around a 100 people attended at least one of the meetings and some all three.  It demonstrated a keen interest by people who were concerned and interested in the future of the City and wanted to be involved in what happened.

    There were two main types of consultation: DAD and EDD he said.  They stood for Decide – Announce – Defend and, Engage – Deliberate – Decide.  Unfortunately, there had been a tendency towards the former where people felt proposals had all been decided and their involvement was just a formality. The Alliance was naturally enough, keener on the second approach.

    The top five

    After the three meetings the top five issues emerged.  They were:

    1. Housing and issues around quality and affordability
    2. Traffic and transport
    3. A Community Hub
    4. An Environment Centre
    5. A college for the performing arts

    A full description of these and a brief report of the final assembly, can be found on this link.

    Mark said that present in the room, were the five ‘champions’ for each of these ideas and he suggested the next step is some kind of engagement with councillors and others. He mentioned the idea of citizen’s juries, another idea being promoted by SDA, which has been successfully used to tackle more complex problems.  It was true they cost money but the cost of getting these things wrong needs also to be considered.  They have the advantage of engaging experts into the debate and engaging a cross section of citizens in the process.

    Responses

    In response to Mark’s presentation, councillors had some questions and comments.

    Cllr Sven Hocking asked how will those who took part in this event or SDA help councillors find the budget.  Mark replied that it was not the role of SDA to try and manage the council’s budget.  We were only seeking to submit ideas.

    Cllr Ricky Rogers said on the housing issue, it was government who decide.  Developers were in a strong position he said.  This was a matter which came up in our debates and is a fair point. 

    Cllr Ed Rimmer was more sceptical.  He thought it better for people to engage in the existing system.  He questioned whether the [five priorities] reflected the wishes of the wider community. Is there not a risk that what is proposed subverts the [electoral] system we have?  After all, the councillors here have been voted in to represent people. How can SDA demonstrate political balance?

    In replying Mark said we were not suggesting our method was better. He stressed people had given up their time.  The point was our method was deliberative.

    Cllr John Wells said he had attended one of the sessions. He suggested some of the ideas should be built into the things they are engaged in already.

    There followed a general debate in which it was stressed that the process was about helping the councillors do their job.  It was agreed that better engagement was wanted and was a good idea.

    Cllr Paul Sample (Chair) said the work was opportune.  There was a review of the Area Boards underway and he welcomed the ideas and energy put in.  “Keep doing what you’re doing – it’s not wasted!” 

    Comment

    After the work put into organising and running the three assemblies, we were encouraged with the overall response we received. There does seem to be a change of attitude among the majority of councillors that admits they do need input from organised events of this kind.

    It is true that councillors (and members of parliament) are voted in to run things but the question is how many of the public would have read their manifestos before doing so?  How do you accommodate changing circumstances?  Are people only to have a say every 4 or five years?  As new problems or opportunities arise is it not best to tap into any local expertise?

    The three sessions demonstrated the degree of enthusiasm and commitment local people had. The point surely was to bottle some of this enthusiasm and use it to change or improve things. Trust in politics is at a very low ebb. People feel ignored and left out. This kind of deliberative approach would surely put a small dent in that thinking.

    The future

    We shall be meeting soon to consider next steps and there will be a post here so subscribe if you want to remain in touch. Why not join us? We need more people who want to play a role in local affairs. As we have debated in several of our Democracy Café meetings (next one on Saturday July 12th, 10:00 in the Library finishing at noon), the role of parties in the local political scene is doubted by many and is seen as an irrelevance. We are not a political party and our aim is to improve how things are run.

    Peter Curbishley

  • Progress meeting

    Notes of a committee meeting to discuss progress with our various plans

    March 2023

    Eight of us met this week to discuss progress and make plans for forthcoming event. This is to keep the wider membership in the picture and is not meant to be an authoritative minute of the meeting. Also present were three members of RSA.

    Talkshop

    The main topic of conversation was around the next Talkshop event and we spent some time reviewing 60 cards with suggestions and possible projects. Some were of limited relevance to Salisbury but we still managed to identify two dozen possibles from the full list. After lengthy discussion we boiled it down to 4 possible topics:

    • Trying to include the voices and views of the ‘unheard’. These are people who are marginalised, who do not feel politics is for them, that their views are unwanted or who simply cannot engage because they cannot get out in the evening for example.
    • Involvement in the budgeting process. This might be ambitious since local government financing is highly technical and heavily constrained by Treasury rules. It was once said that only four people in the country understood local government finances and one of those was dead. It is worth serious consideration however as what is in the budget determines what does and doesn’t get done. And why shouldn’t citizens be involved?
    • Citizens’ juries and the need for: hardly any need to expand on this as it is our raison d’être.
    • Involving young people. It will be the young who inherit what we do now and their world is quite different from the generations which went before. Yet they are seldom seen when decisions are taken.

    We then spent some time discussing invitees which will include local politicians, Area Board people, Chambers, TUs. We discussed publicity and it will include posters in schools, the WCA newsletter, Transition City and no doubt others will be added at the planning stage. It will be a ticketed event.

    The objective was agreed: ‘to develop a set of policy objectives or projects involving local people and which could be implemented by Salisbury City Council and if necessary, Wiltshire Council’.

    It will run in Brown Street on May 27th from 10:00 ’till noon prompt.

    Planning

    It was brought to the group’s attention that in the last edition of The Planner, the journal of the Royal Town Planning Institute, there was a leading article on the subject of community involvement and citizen’s assemblies. It is likely that officers in WC planning dept. will have seen the article and it was agreed we would write to the head of planning suggesting a meeting to discuss. Update: letter sent 18th March copy below.

    Local Plan

    Consultation on the local plan was well underway and it was queried whether we should make some kind of response. The plan was well advance it was noted and it was suggested there were a number of shortcomings which will make its implementation problematic. See an earlier post and see also a response to our letter lamenting the lack of a citizens’ assembly during the preparation phase.

    Eco Hub stall

    We shared a stall in February in the Market Place and the results were a little disappointing. For next time the lessons learned were: sharing a stall does not work; there were too few flyers and we need something similar to the Brexitometer run by Salisbury for Europe that is, a board with options or questions to engage passers by.

    People in the Park

    Whether we should have a stall at this event again was discussed but the cost of insurance – which exhibitors have to pay themselves this year, means it is no longer viable.

    Democracy Café

    The last café was run the previous Saturday in the new venue in the Library. This had been a success although if numbers grew too large it might be a problem. The next meeting is on 8 April. A report of the last meeting can be read here.

    Generally we felt it had been a worthwhile meeting and plans for the second Talkshop look exciting. The next planning meeting is on 18 April at 14:00 probably in Brown Street (to be confirmed).

    PC

    Letter to Nic Thomas, WC Download

  • Climate change

    Several of us attended a meeting of the Salisbury Area Board in the Guildhall last night (4 November 2019) which was a joint event with Wiltshire Council (WC) and the City Council (SCC). It was extremely well attended with – I estimated – around 110 or so there.

    There were presentations by a WC officer and by the Mayor for the City. Each table was then asked to think about suggestions they would like to make and there was a feedback session with one from each table.

    Both organisations must be complimented on organising the event and the numbers attending demonstrated real concern for the subject.

    The first thing to note was that both the WC and SCC contributions were essentially top down. It was what they were going to do. They neither of them costed or showed a timescale in any realistic way. It took Prof. Graham Smith, speaking for his table, to point out the need for a baseline analysis. By this I assume he meant the need to assess what would be needed to achieve carbon neutrality by looking at where we are now and where we need to get to. Looking at WC’s webpage on the subject, there are no statistics, solid plans or timetable for what has to be done between now and 2030. Similarly with SCC’s plans.

    Jeremy Nettle emphasised the need to ‘do something now’ and, as he put it ‘it was difficult stuff [and] costs money’. The council has a budget of £56,000 for the work. Both presentations however were short on how people’s minds, attitudes and behaviours could be changed although Nettle did say ‘the hardest thing is changing people’s minds’. It was just a bit light on how.

    The elephant in the room of course was that those present could be assumed to be people who accept the threat of a climate emergency and that something needs to be done urgently. In the population at large there are many who do not. There are still many denialists.

    One speaker noted the limited powers that local government has in comparison with the national government. In that connection we must mention our local MP Mr Glen who, according to ‘They Work for You’ website, generally votes against climate change policies and is openly dismissive of Extinction Rebellion. DeSmog analysis shows him at 15%, a dismal score. The question of making new homes more thermally efficient was mentioned. Fine but what about existing homes? Making rented homes more efficient was voted down by this government (supported as ever by Mr Glen).

    But our biggest disappointment was that neither Mark Read of WC nor Jeremy Nettle of SCC mentioned a Citizens’s Assembly despite several meetings and emails between us and them on this very subject. Cllr Nettle is allegedly in favour and has certainly led us to believe this. Citizen’s’s involvement was left to a request for people to leave their names on a sheet of paper at the exit. This will assemble a wholly unrepresentative list of people – all of whom will be in favour of climate action – and drawn from a narrow demographic.

    The approach does seem to be essentially flawed. Without a structured involvement by the citizens of Salisbury, guided as necessary by appropriate expertise and supported by baseline data, the result is likely to be an uncoordinated series of actions which – however well meaning – are unlikely to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality. Achieving climate change is going to need robust and grounded policies many of which will be met by indifference or hostility. The forces of resistance are well funded by the fossil fuel industry. Both authorities are going to need a lot of solid support from local people and on this showing, they are unlikely to get this.

    Peter Curbishley

    [These views do not necessarily represent those of the Alliance]